How to nickel/chrome plate slugs and magnets?

[David Schwab]

+1

RoHS is for consumer electronics that are going to eventually end up in the trash, like cell phones.

Just use some of those do not throw in trash stickers like Fender does. lol You know they aren't using that crap solder.

Tin whiskers indeed!

[David Schwab]

Have you ever seen an old Strat or Tele single coil? After many years of rock'n'roll and sweat the AlNiCo rods became rusty and this rust eventually penetrates the coil corroating the wire. That's because the old Fender ones die.

Because you said "slugs and magnets" I thought you were talking about humbucker magnets!

I put a insulating tape around the magnets before wind but think it's still not enough since I want to make eternal pickups. Also, as Red House said, the plated poles became brighty and beauty, like the other plated pieces of the guitar.
Maybe it causes some kind of tonal difference I have to experiment.

Yeah, insulate your magnets. And ground them too.

It might alter the tone somewhat, but you will have to try it.

[RedHouse]

Some of Caswell's plating stuff is pretty advanced. Usually nickel plating is done with a copper preplate, all the polished covers we buy are preplated in copper, I really hate that. The first bucker covers didn't have that done, DMC covers are the only ones I know of that have no copper underneath, or at least an invisible layer of it. Their electroless plating solutions are awesome.....

Yeah I agree with that, it's weird and un-necessary to flash copper before plating nickel onto nickel covers.

They do it to fill in surface imperfections so they don't have to work so hard prep'ing (sanding and polishing) it's an old platers trick.

I find electroless is somehow a different finish, goes on thinker and can chip/chunk off in stress related applications. I had a 1911A1 electroless nickel plated and it had a lot of prblems in the slide grooves where the electroless somehow came loos in micro-chunks (flaked?) when the piece was being used. I would find the chunks/flakes after a session when cleaning it.

Speaking of DMC, I use those on my (dare I say) PAF style humbuckers, they are waaaaayyyyy over priced but sound good on top.

[RedHouse]

...Yeah, insulate your magnets. And ground them too....

+1

[Artur pickupmaker]

Of course nothing is eternal, it was an expression force. I mean a pickup that will works longer as possible, I hope a long time after I die. If I do everything else right it is important to prevent the AlNiCo rods to oxide too and this pickup will live for a long time.

What is this RoHS solder you talk about? It's commun plumbum with tin solder?
Which is the best solder to use?

[Artur pickupmaker]

A thick copper preplate in a PAF cover is so bad in tone as you are saying?
And if the basepiece is copper as some I see, it will be horrible?!

[David King]

Of course nothing is eternal, it was an expression force. I mean a pickup that will works longer as possible, I hope a long time after I die. If I do everything else right it is important to prevent the AlNiCo rods to oxide too and this pickup will live for a long time.

What is this RoHS solder you talk about? It's commun plumbum with tin solder?
Which is the best solder to use?

No, RoHS solder is lead free, usually 97%tin with CU and AG to stabilize it a bit. It's only required in EU and Japan. California might jump on the bandwagon any day now but I think you don't need to worry about it in Brazil unless you export to EU/Japan.

"Normal" solders are 60-40 or 63-37 Tin - Lead.

[Possum]

....

The sick thing is that ROHS solder guarantees your product will end up in the trash.

I saw a '60 PAF in here I worked on, the plating was really thick and chipping off, I wonder if they also used electroless plating, there is no discernible copper preplate, and german silver has copper in it anyway. Underneath the plating the cover was very striated and rough, probably why the heavy plating....

[Bruce Johnson]

Yeah, I also have seen a lot of '60's instruments with bad plating that's peeling off. I think the main reason is because the guitar companies back then (including the big guys) were taking their parts to the cheapest plating house they could find. They were cheating on the preparation and cleaning of the parts. Generally, when you see really thick plating, that's an indication of lousy quality work. Thick plating will chip and peel.

About the copper base plating: My plating house says that it serves two purposes. It acts as a "primer" to smooth out small tooling marks and scratches, and it improves the bond between the nickel and the base metal, particularly when the part is steel. That is, nickel bonds better to copper than it does to bare steel. The copper base adds thickness to the plating, but my understanding is that it improves the durability.

[soundmasterg]

The problem with the ROHS directives is that if you want to sell your product in those places that require it, due to expense, you pretty much have to shift all of your product over to lead free solder. This happened at the place I used to work at.....they spent millions of dollars figuring out the problems with using non-lead solder, only to discover that there are some problems such as tin whiskers that you can't eliminate, so they had to change their warranty on their products from 50 years to 10 years, and aren't even sure if their product will last that long without major failure problems. They are already having issues with tin whiskers on things that are not even a couple years old. There was a reason why lead was added to solder 75 years ago when they invented it......the lead stopped the tin whiskers. Incidentally, the growing of tin when exposed to electrical currents also happens with silver, gold, and many other metals. The one common thing that stops it is lead. The EU, Japan, and China all require non-lead solder in any products sold there. There are exceptions for some things, mainly things with critical needs, such as military. The sad thing is that as a population, we've let this happen to us. All the products we use on a daily basis have gone from being something that we bought with longevity a serious consideration to the general population not caring that planned obcelesence is built in from the factory. All your TV's and DVD players and computers and automobiles and jets and.......well you get the idea. I think I'll just stay at home and listen to music on my tube stereo or play guitar through my tube amps.

Here are some links for exciting reading......

Greg

Rollback the Lead-Free Initiative

NASA Goddard Tin Whisker Homepage

[David King]

Are tin whiskers really going to disable a pickup? How?